Now there are 8 families living in Pristanište: mothers and children from 7 to 13 years old, some with special needs. They recently visited an equestrian club and rode real horses.
Everyone was happy – mothers, children, owners of the Monterancho Horse equestrian club Magdalena and Vladimir, and, it seems, even all 5 horses that worked with them.
‘Hippotherapy is a special genre of communication with a horse,’ says Yana Zatvatkina, an instructor at Monteancho. ‘ There are fewer words, but more feelings. The horse does not evaluate you, but accepts you as you are. It subtly picks up nonverbal signals – the slightest changes in the body, breathing, mood. And answers them. This is how a dialogue is born’.
Monteancho often offers hippotherapy classes for children with ADHD, ASD, and other complex diagnoses. Working with a large, calm animal gives you a sense of confidence and creates an ‘I can do it’ experience. And this experience is transferred to other areas of life.
Mothers whose children rode a horse for the first time yesterday said that they did not believe that this could be so: ‘It was like love at first sight!’
Thank you to everyone who made this possible.
